The mid 1990’s was a great time to be working at NIKE. Especially for those of us who were working in the NIKE Team Sports (NTS) division of NIKE Apparel. There was a big push to be on-field with marquee professional and college teams in order to add authenticity to NIKE’s licensed apparel business. Often times we worked hand in hand with footwear designers on complete head to toe looks that pushed the boundaries on performance during competition.

As an on field partner, we were in a unique position to not only outfit athletes head to toe with the swoosh, but we strengthened partnerships by designing new identities for a number of teams including the Florida State Seminoles, Georgetown Hoyas, Washington Huskies, Miami Hurricanes, Dallas Mavericks, Portland Trailblazers, New York Giants, Denver Broncos and Oregon Ducks.

I was hired as an NTS designer in 1995 under some of the most talented people in the industry. Creative Director, Todd Van Horne was and is the most influential person in my career who gave everyone room to roam and explore the boundaries. He led the redesign efforts of the teams listed above and also led the update of the Seattle Seahawks team look in 2012. One of my friends and fellow designers, Rodney Richardson went on to design the Houston Texans and New Orleans Pelicans team logos.

My first project after being hired was helping redesign the NFL Denver Broncos’ team identity. As one of three core design team members, we had a lot to prove and a lot as we were in new territory. Suffice to say, the resulting Denver Broncos branding not only changed the landscape for Pat Bowlen’s team, but for all of sports. According to an ESPN poll, the Denver Broncos identity was #2 on the Coolest team identities list behind the University of Michigan. It was personally gratifying personally as I grew up in Denver as a Broncos fan my whole life.

After we finished the Denver Broncos identity they went and won back to back Super Bowls in 1998 and 1999. We were feeling pretty good about what we were capable of. That’s when NIKE CEO, Phil Knight approached us about updating the University of Oregon branding. His vision at that time was to raise Oregon’s status as a national title contender by attracting better players, better coaches and grow the Oregon fan base. Plans were under way to expand the size of Autzen stadium and add more seats.

RESPECT THE PAST, REPRESENT THE FUTURE

Nike was born on the track at the University of Oregon. It’s been well documented how Oregon track coach, Bill Bowerman revolutionized the footwear industry when he poured rubber into his wife's waffle iron at home and essentially created a new kind of footwear technology. He and one of the runners he coached—Phil Knight— formed the company that would eventually be known as NIKE.

We had to respect the deep connection between university and global sportswear company. Our task was to capture that Bowerman magic again and revolutionize the college football player with the most advanced head to toe performance technology.

On the Broncos project I was an assistant designer doing a lot of the grunt work of converting sketches to Illustrator files. On the Oregon Ducks project I had the opportunity to step into the lead designer role and explore the boundaries of what the Oregon Ducks could be. Again, it was personally gratifying as I was a student in the University of Oregon’s Architecture program back in the late 1980’s.

We pulled ideas and research from technological advancements made by asian countries around the pacific rim. I was especially interested in things that looked sleek and moved fast, like bullet trains in Japan. They were so light and moved through space effortlessly—a metaphor for future Oregon skill players.

We also dove into researching metaphysical meanings behind natural elements such as lightning (which later became the name of the yellow color used), color changing iridescence of a mallard’s head, and circular flow in nature. The question we kept asking ourselves is, “how do you make a duck look tough?” Oregon’s Donald Duck logo via a hand shake deal with Walt Disney just wasn’t intimidating anyone.

One element was missing. We needed the spirit of irreverence exemplified by legendary Olympic runner and Oregon track star, Steve Prefontaine. His determination is now part of lore and has been made into two movies.

I had to figure out how to put all those elements into a blender and combine them into something that honored the convergence of the university, the track and the people who founded NIKE.

THE BIRTH OF A REVOLUTION

When I see the on field gear worn by the Oregon Ducks today it makes me realize how far Phil Knight’s vision has come. The stadium was expanded in 2002, the football team has been a frequent visitor to the Top 10 in college football rankings over the years and now the Ducks have their first Heisman Trophy winner in Marcus Mariota.

I remember noodling over and over on various ‘O’ logos that captured the soul of the University of Oregon without infringing on the trademark of well known eye wear companies or looking vanilla. One of the options looked like a weapon used on Star Trek. Yet others tried to combine a ‘U’ and and ‘O’ in a traditional interlocking look. One logo option was even meant to look like the angry eye of a duck.

Finally, one day I was visiting Eugene looking at Hayward Field. The shape of the track jumped out at me because of its importance to NIKE and the University. I got to thinking how that shape was circular, so I took the shape of the track and the shape of Autzen Stadium's fooprint and punched the track shape out of the stadium shape. With that, the Oregon 'O' was born.

A few months earlier I had been at a car show in Detroit where color shifting car paint made its first appearance. It seemed gimmicky for cars but I finally got around to developing my photos from the car show in the midst of the Oregon project. One day on lunch I was sitting out on a bench next to the lake on the NIKE campus watching ducks swim. I noticed how a mallards head looked like that color shifting paint. If this were a cartoon, a lightbulb would've appeared above my head. I got to thinking what if we could paint the football helmets with that paint to emulate the iridescence on a mallards head. It just so happened one of the available paint colors was a dark green not far from the green we wanted to use.

I met with footwear designer, Tracy Teague and showed him what we were planning on doing with the helmets. He sourced material that also shifted colors and designed a futuristic football cleat made exclusively for Oregon football players.

The car paint didn't work right away on the helmets. In fact, the compounds in the paint broke down the plastic in the helmets. In initial tests the helmets exploded with minimal contact. We had to work closely with Ridell and Chromaflair paint technologies to augment the paint color so it would work on the helmet.

While juggling helmet/paint issues and footwear applications we not only needed to finalize the logo and typeface, but we also worked with uniform designer, David Turner on his futuristic designs for the uniforms and never-before-used fabrics. David has created many of the groundbreaking uniform designs in football over the past 15 years. He singlehandedly moved the entire industry forward with his 'Cordura' uniform design that not only breathed better than anything, but was lightweight and hugged the player's body.

As final pieces started falling into place, we were left with the helmet design. Originally, there wasn't supposed to be anything on the sides of the helmet, just a small 3-D rubber 'O' on the front. I was overruled and the 'O' went on the side of the helmet.

I left NIKE in 2003, but the Oregon brand was left in good hands. Legendary designer and footwear icon, Tinker Hatfield and his team have taken the original Oregon Ducks identity and have raised the bar each year since its inception.

The only thing missing from the original mission we started in 1999 is a national championship. Hopefully this is Oregon's year to put an exclamation point on the University of Oregon's brand story.

As I typed the headline to this blog post it struck me how fast time flies. I still think of the Broncos identity as “new” even though it’s been around since 1997. When I look at the horse logo on the side of the helmet it still seems new and modern.

Back in 1996 I was a 26-year old assistant designer at NIKE in a department called Team Sports. Team Sports was part of NIKE Apparel, and our mission was to outfit players on field head to toe with NIKE stuff. We created all the on field authentic apparel as well as sideline hats, sweatshirts, t-shirts, pants, jackets and other team gear. To strengthen partnerships with teams, we sometimes redesigned and rebranded them like we did for the Denver Broncos.

Pat Bowlen, owner of the Denver Broncos came to us at NIKE and asked us to design him a horse equivalent of the NIKE swoosh. In his words he said, “I want a horse that looks like it’s going to kick your ass”. In February 1996 a core team came together to give Mr. Bowlen what he wanted. Todd Van Horne was the Creative Director (Todd also led the Seattle Seahawks uniform update in 2012), Ken Black was the Art Director, David Odusanya was Lead Designer and I was the Assistant Designer.

Throughout the project we worked with other creatives from NIKE, but the four of us made up the nucleus of the rebrand team. The first thing we did in the creative process was research. We spent a month getting to know the Broncos as well as they knew themselves (or better). We summed up their entire existence into a brand research book. We had the opportunity to visit the NFL Hall of Fame and go through the archives (which are closed to the public).

RESEARCH AND THE GHOST HORSE OF THE PLAINS

Our research led us to identify uncontrollable forces in nature like lightning, waves volcanoes and fire. We came across a Native American legend of a “ghost horse” of the plains. The legend of this ghost horse was that it was so spirited it couldn’t be tamed or broken by man...

The notion of uncontrollable forces was an overarching theme throughout the whole process. What was it that was at the heart of living things that made them so strong. How was their will so strong it couldn't be tamed?

As we sat down to sketch out thumbnails we tried to visually combine the elements of those inspiration images into our ideas. We sketched hundreds of ideas and laid them all out on the conference room table. Some had elements of a serpent while others have the explosive flow of a wave.

LOGO CONCEPTING

We whittled all those sketches down to about a dozen different concepts and from there converted the sketches to Illustrator files where we could explore each concept. It became clear to us that a horse's power comes from its neck. Wherever the head and neck go, the body follows. So throughout the design process we emphasized the flow of the power through the neck.

To capture elements of the ghost horse, we wanted to represent the fire in the belly of the beast. And because the eyes are the windows to the soul, the final logo became a white "ghost" horse with fiery orange eyes.

Lead Designer, David Odusanya grew up in Great Britain and was mostly unfamiliar with American football. It was interesting to watch him explore the logo concepts looking through an impartial set of eyes. On the other hand, I grew up in Colorado as a Bronco fan, so the entire process was very personal.

FINALIZING THE MARK

We presented to Pat Bowlen at the Broncos HQ three times. Without Mr. Bowlen's clear vision of what he wanted, we might have ended up with something different, but he kept pushing us to make it better and deliver a timeless mark that was the horse equivalent of a swoosh.

As we got closer to a final primary logo, we worked closely with Tracy Teague in footwear design and David Turner in apparel design to create forward thinking head to toe performance gear. Much like the air sole in shoes, NIKE likes to show off technological advancements. Turner's "batwing" uniform design was more advanced than anything in existence.

The uniform design featured a curved side stripe that served as a "hinge" and kept the jersey snug against the player's body, which was a radical design at the time. We highlighted that feature by making it a different color, which resembled a wing. The media thought NIKE was trying to put a subliminal swoosh into the uniform (and even in the nose of the logo) but if they new how strict NIKE legal was about how the swoosh is supposed to appear, they would know that was a reach. We all got a good chuckle out of watching conspiracy theories materialize out of thin air.

The final Denver Broncos logo was the result of several months of exploring and refining. Exploring and refining. We played with different options of how the logo would appear on the helmet to capture the strength of the horse's neck.

In September 1996 we presented to Pat Bowlen and every one loved what is, and has become the current logo. We set out to create a timeless mark that represented everyone Mr. Bowlen was looking for. And at the end of the day, we created a brand that was an outward sign of an inward belief.

Remember the first time you got a Groupon offer and couldn’t wait to claim it?

Remember back in the 1990′s when you first recieved an offer to buy something via email?

Remember the first time you saw ads on Google or Facebook over on the right side of your screen?

How many of you watch your favorite shows recorded on TiVo so you can fast forward through the commercials?

Did you ever have a Yahoo! email account? If you did I bet you haven’t signed lately in because of the continual spamming of your IN box.

The click through rate (CTR) on banner ads back in the mid 1990′s was between 50-75%. Now the click through rate on banner ads is less than 1%. Based on the Epsilon Email Trend and Benchmark Report, the average open rate for email campaigns is 22.2% and the average click-through rate is 5.9%, almost half of what it was in 1995.

Twitter advertising considers a 1-3% engagement rate on promoted tweets to be a success. Direct mail marketers also feel a 1-3% response rate is a success. I’m no math wiz but to me a 1-3% response rate sounds lousy. Wouldn’t you rather have a 70% or 80% response to your marketing efforts?

Now we see the Groupon or LivingSocial offer in our IN box and we delete it before opening it. We tune out the ads on the right side of the screen on Facebook and Google. We get all sorts of marketing emails first thing in the morning because marketers have seen studies that suggest people check their emails first thing in the morning. The problem is everyone has seen those reports, and we’re filling email IN boxes at the same time with marketing bullshit.

The proverbial “they” are getting tired of being marketed to. Consumers have pretty much seen it all. There are very few new ideas in the marketing world, so marketers latch on to anything mildly successful and replicate it. Marketers take something good like a clean swimming pool on a summer day and pee in it but it’s not their fault.

So how can businesses market and sell their stuff? After all, that is what makes Capitalism work. In America we have a green light to sell as much as we can and make as much money as we want. The things holding us back from that are competition and ourselves. We’re afraid to trust our gut and try new ideas.

The answer is not going to be what business owners want to hear. The answer is to care. Care about each individual person who touches your brand online. It takes time — lots of time. More time than business owners want to pay for. They want a current employee to “check the tweets and Facebook” after their other tasks are done. It’s an oh-by-the-way after thought. Failure is already taking shape. Business owners don’t want to invest in a team of employees who can proactively manage the online community. They might have one person handling things. Business owner approach social media on the cheaps because they want to pay for their vacation home in Hawaii or get their kids into the best school. So their brand marketers have to take short cuts, which is what leads to peeing in the pool

At this moment in history all businesses and marketers have a rare opportunity, this window will only be open for a short time. Twitter and Facebook were clean swimming pools in 2009 and 2010. But marketers started to catch on and eventually polluted the pool with contests and gimmicks to fluff their follower numbers. Before marketers can ruin it there’s a gap in the timeline that precedes mass adoption. How do we get people’s attention to hear our marketing message? Soon we’ll run out of new social networks to infiltrate which means we’ll run out of opportunities to have “clarity of message” like we now have on Google+.

Social sites are going to keep evolving. SEO experts who gamed the system to get first page rankings are now finding the game has changed. All the sites we’re on will keep iterating but the thing that can stay constant is a solid, dedicated team of community care providers will provide consistency. No matter what we throw at consumers, they’ll quickly learn to tune it out. The one thing people respond to is to be loved or cared about. The social tools make it possible to do that. They just want you to commit to them.